When we had finally arrived at the hotel late in the evening after many a trip to Burger King, I ventured inside by myself to investigate if it was actually the hotel. Danny DeVito was sat looking exhausted watching the huge flat-screen TV on the lobby hotel. He flew off his seat when he saw me and sneakily rushed to the reception desk like I wouldn’t have noticed him lazy about. I walked to across the tiny room to greet the tiny man he didn’t speak a word of English but seemed happy to see me. When I tried to show him the booking confirmation on my phone he wasn’t interested, he just wanted to chat in Russian with me. He would say something in Russian then laugh to himself. His rolled up shirt sleeves would suggest he had been hard at work all day, but the full collection of room keys behind the desk would suggest otherwise. We stood chatting, well he stood talking and laughing while I stood wondering what the hell we were getting ourselves into, for a few more minutes before he finished all he had to say and went to work on his computer. He stared at the screen in confusion for a few moments before turning back to me like he had forgotten I was there. I tried to show him the booking confirmation again in the hope that it might help him, not that I could tell if he was even checking us in. Danny still wasn’t interested in minor things like that and got off his chair and led me by the arm to the sofa, he sat me down and handed me the remote with the biggest smile in the world. I didn’t want to offend him so I cheerily flicked through channel after channel of TV I wouldn’t possibly understand, then I remembered I had left Chris sat in the car by the roadside.

 

I got up to collect Chris from outside but DeVito’s eyes were on me in a flash, he came running over to me in the friendliest manner like he was worried I was trying to escape his hotel’s clutches. When I pointed outside and expertly mimed a steering wheel motion he was off out the door like a Danny DeVito shaped flash. I waived to Chris as a sign to bring the car over to the place where the short man was also waving, all though it was a far more enthusiastically. As soon as the car was organised to his liking, I suppose he was leaving room for the flood of other customers that was to be expected at any moment, he had us chained in. Once we were back in the hotel he was so excited to have two guests that he didn’t bother with any checking in and rushed us into the lift. He pointed to the various features of the somewhat unremarkable lift with childish glee before ushering us towards a room. When we were all firmly inside the room he caught his stride and showed us how to use everything in the room including the taps, windows, TV, lamps and light switches. His lack of English didn’t affect any of his detailed demonstrations, every action was accompanied by a selection of proud and explanatory noises while we stood nodding approvingly. Everything in the hotel seemed to be brand new, and everything in the room was perfect. When I went downstairs again to ask about the hotel’s Wi-Fi password he was on the phone beaming with pride, probably telling his parents all about how his hotel was going to be a roaring success, before he noticed me and hung up to raid through his desk for a slip of paper.

 

In the morning we had the best shower of the rally after a night in the most comfortable beds of the rally, then headed downstairs for breakfast. The lobby was now full of staff ready to greet their foreign customers, but Danny was instantly panicked when he thought we were leaving without breakfast. The breakfast was the fanciest fried eggs we’ve ever eaten and huge buffet to ourselves.  Once we had consumed as much as is physically possibly we went to check out, where we found that Danny had brought in a girl who spoke English. She ask a heap of questions before translating it all to Danny, who was most pleased with our responses. If you ever find yourself in Novosibirsk without a place to stay, head to a burger king, ignore the list of other hotels, and book yourself a room in this one.  

 

I could discuss the day’s drive in great detail, but to be honest you could read the uneventful paragraph from yesterday’s blog and get the same information. Uninteresting days of driving were taking its toll and we found ourselves missing the rest of the convoy. We debated throwing watermelons at passing Russians, but decided that would probably be lead to us being murdered and no one wants that. Of course we could go with the fire extinguisher attack, but that would probably lead to the same outcome – unless we pre-emptively went with matt’s murderous tactics instead. In the afternoon we were flying past Northern Kazakhstan, unfortunately we weren’t in a plane but we were travelling at roughly the same speed. I had been driving until the car needed food and we needed petrol where we swapped and Chris took the reins. He pulled out of the petrol station behind a few slow moving lorries. Not wishing to drive into the back of the lorry or slow down, we over took on solid white lines. A manoeuvre which wasn’t particularly unsafe because we could clearly see down the long straight road. Unfortunately that meant the police officers sat at the other end of the stretch could also see clearly down the straight long road to us.

 

When we reached the police car Chris was pulled over, with the rest of the car and myself included in the action, and the policeman was quick to snatch up Chris’ permit and our V5. What follows is the story of how Google Translate saved us from a hefty fine. Once the officer had visited his friend in the police car to pass on Chris’ documents he returned to chat to Chris who was still sat in the car. There was an awkwardly long moment as the man stood by the window in silence with his smartphone hidden from view before a large hand thrust the phone in Chris’ face. The phone ‘explained’ the problem with broken English about various lines, so Chris got out the car to stretch out his fingers to type a response - A response which was half grovelling and half barefaced lying, he apologised a few times before saying he didn’t know that was a problem. I got out to stretch my legs and get a better vantage point. The policeman then used the phone to convey all the emotions his face was missing, and typed “HA! You believe me to think that” or some poor attempt at translating that he wasn’t an idiot. There were a few more attempts at excuses and a few more attempts at English from the phone. Half of the responses lead to Chris pointing at the word with making a confused face to the officer, who of course only knew what he had typed in Russian. One attempt was in the vein of ‘all the cool kids are doing it!’ as we explained we had seen Russian drivers do it. He still wasn’t buying what Chris was selling, and simply handed the phone back for a reattempt. At that point it was clear we weren’t going to get away with anything this time, so Chris asked what would happen now.

 

Now Chris was asking questions the officer liked, he typed something about protocol then led Chris to the police car parked by the side of the road. I watched as the two policeman sat in the front seat discussing things until the phone began to be passed backwards and forwards, which still involved the occasional confused looking reading then confused pointing at the screen. Eventually the original officer got out of the car to pull over our Russian counterparts and left Chris in the car with his partner. I watched as the officer gave out fines to every driver in a matter of minutes, the locals contested but ultimately all gave in. I looked back to the car and saw Chris darting back across the road, I wasn’t sure if he had gotten a fine or if we were making a run for it, either way we were quickly back on the road. In the car Chris explained what happened in the police car. Apparently they had restarted the poorly translated discussion of what Chris had done with the new officer, then shown him a video of us overtaking on the solid white line. Once the first officer had left, the second got down to business and begun his paperwork. When Chris asked what was happening the officer said they were going to “Superfluous” his licence. Chris must have performed the most expertly executed confused face ever, because he was instantly let off without any fine.

 

For the rest of the day we avoided any more trouble by luckily not seeing another police car, which was fortunate because our headlights were no longer working. We continued sneaking by Kazakhstan with our lights off until it began going dark. At that point we took a sudden turn down a dark road into a forest. We followed the road until the tarmac ran out at a large rubbish tip, then followed the road as it continued as a combination of dirt and potholes. I spotted a track leading into an opening in the woods and stopped to investigate. The track was pretty solid so we ventured down and found a delightful spot hidden from the road by a patch of trees and next to someone’s favourite fly-tipping spot. After dinner I swapped the headlight bulbs while Chris put together a bear defence plan consisting of fire extinguishers and large sticks.